H. G. Wells, The War of the Worlds

Keith B Williams (University of Dundee)

Ed. by Gillian Fenwick, University of Toronto
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.08: English Writing and Culture of the early Twentieth Century , 1900-1945.
Vol. editors: Chris Baldick (Goldsmiths College, University of London), Peter Childs (Birmingham Newman University), Louise McDonald (Birmingham Newman University), Andrew Radford (University of Glasgow)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1898

Places

England (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel
Science Fiction/ Speculative

Resources

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Recommended Reading

The War of the Worlds

(

TWOTW

), first serialised in

Pearson's Magazine

April-Dec. 1897, was published in book form by Heinemann in Jan. 1898 and has stayed in print ever since. It was Wells's fourth scientific romance and one of his most influential, imagining an attack on southern England by Martians using advanced weaponry of mass destruction and formulating the basic DNA sequence of the alien invasion genre. It played on the “Mars Fever” gripping the popular imagination in the 1890s, when, thanks to observations and theories by astronomers such as Giovanni Schiaparelli and Percival Lowell about an apparent canal system, for a time it looked as if there might be a real possibility Mars was the abode of a more advanced extra-terrestrial civilisation. Lowell's writings urged humans to…

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2542 words

Citation: Williams, Keith B. "The War of the Worlds". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 08 June 2009 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=8092, accessed 23 November 2024.]

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H. G. Wells, The War of the Worlds

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